Coriolanus (2011) - IMDb IMDb 17 January 2017 8:05 PM, UTC NEWS There was an error trying to load your rating for this title. Some parts of this page won't work property. Please reload or try later. X Beta I'm Watching This! Keep track of everything you watch; tell your friends. Error From $2.99 (SD) on Amazon Video ON DISC A banished hero of Rome allies with a sworn enemy to take his revenge on the city. Director: Famous Directors: From Sundance to Prominence From Christopher Nolan to Quentin Tarantino and every Coen brother in between, many of today's most popular directors got their start at the Sundance Film Festival . Here's a list of some of the biggest names to go from Sundance to Hollywood prominence.

a list of 41 titles created 01 Sep 2011 a list of 26 titles created 22 Dec 2012 a list of 39 titles created 03 Jan 2013 a list of 26 titles created 17 Jul 2015 a list of 25 titles created 08 Sep 2015 Search for " Coriolanus " on Amazon.com Connect with IMDb Want to share IMDb's rating on your own site? Use the HTML below. You must be a registered user to use the IMDb rating plugin. Nominated for 1 BAFTA Film Award. Another 10 wins & 16 nominations. See more awards » Videos Edit Storyline The citizens of Rome are hungry. Coriolanus, the hero of Rome, a great soldier and a man of inflexible self-belief despises the people. His extreme views ignite a mass riot. Rome is bloody. Manipulated and out-maneuvered by politicians and even his own mother Volumnia, Coriolanus is banished from Rome. He offers his life or his services to his sworn enemy Tullus Aufidius.

Written by Icon Entertainment Nature Teaches Beasts to Know Their Friends Genres: Rated R for some bloody violence | See all certifications » Parents Guide: 20 January 2012 (UK) See more » Also Known As: $61,136 (USA) (20 January 2012) Gross: Did You Know? Trivia Director Kathryn Bigelow decided to offer Jessica Chastain the lead role in Zero Dark Thirty (2012) after Ralph Fiennes showed her a rough cut of this film. See more » Goofs In the Senate, while General Cominius praises Coriolanus, in a close-up of Menenius on his right hand side a coat-of-arms of Republic of Serbia (doubleheaded eagle with crown) can be seen. The Senate scenes were filmed in the Serbian parliament building. See more » Quotes [first lines] Second Citizen : Before we proceed any further, hear me speak. You are all resolved rather to die than to famish? Gathered Citizens: [in unison] Resolved. Second Citizen : First, you know Caius Martius is chief enemy to the people. Gathered Citizens: We know it.

First Citizen : Let us kill him. And we'll have corn at our own price. Second Citizen : We are accounted poor citizens, the patricians of good. The leanness that afflicts us, the object of our misery, our suffering, is a gain to them. Gathered Citizens: Aye. Second Citizen : Let us revenge this with our sticks, ere we become rakes. First Citizen : No more talking on it. Come! (Stephanie Ekwalla/Vincent Guilbert/Florent Gouriou/Sebastien Herve/Guillaume Rolland) Performed by Sheer K Courtesy of Last Exit Records By Arrangement with Riptide Music, Inc. (Serbia) – See all my reviews This is my first review on IMDb so bare with me. Coriolanus has the right ingredients for a good movie, great story(can you top Shakespeare?) and a strong cast.Only thing that was unknown so far is the director.IMO Mr.

Fiennes did very well in his debut, his camera moves around at eyes height and often lingers close up to actors faces(it keeps the film from being stagy and lets you see all the nuances they convey).Locations are interesting and there are couple of nice fight scenes.The language is Shakespirian but i had no problems understanding it( not my native lang.), musical score is kinda tribal and quite appropriate for the theme of the film. It's a very dark movie and it gets a bit bloody sometime so if you're not into that be warned. My vote is 8/10 i recommend it to everyone and hope to see more of Mr. Fiennes work behind the camera. P.S. Look out Ken Branagh you've got some competition now :) 165 of 218 people found this review helpful. Was this review helpful to you? Yes Ralph Fiennes takes Coriolanus to Berlin film festival | Film | The Guardian Ralph Fiennes takes Coriolanus to Berlin film festival Modern-day interpretation of 17th-century tale is sole British production in competition at next month's Berlin film festival Coriolanus marks Ralph Fiennes’s debut as a director.

Photograph: Larry D Horricks Ralph Fiennes takes Coriolanus to Berlin film festival Modern-day interpretation of 17th-century tale is sole British production in competition at next month's Berlin film festival Wednesday 19 January 2011 15.20 EST First published on Wednesday 19 January 2011 15.20 EST Close This article is 6 years old It's the 17th-century tale of a renegade Roman general from the 5th-century BC. But for Ralph Fiennes , Coriolanus is not just Shakespeare's most urgent, complex tragedy – it's also a war story that speaks directly to the conflicts of today. The big-screen Coriolanus, which marks Fiennes's debut as a director, was today confirmed as the sole British production in competition at next month's Berlin film festival . The modern-day interpretation was shot in Belgrade by the cinematographer Barry Ackroyd, who last worked with Fiennes on the Oscar-winning The Hurt Locker. Fiennes stars in the title role as the loyal soldier turned vengeful exile, while his supporting cast includes Gerard Butler, Brian Cox and Vanessa Redgrave.

"The film is not portraying any specific conflict, though it obviously has parallels with recent social unrest in Greece, Tunisia, or even here, where police are carrying riot shields and kettling protesters," Fiennes told the Guardian. "Before we started, I was prompted by descriptions of Russians going into Grozny and Americans going into Fallujah." The play was briefly banned in 1930s France due to its perceived fascist sensibilities. "In the past it has been linked with fascist ideology. But that's not the right way to go," Fiennes said. "It's a story of loss and waste and devastation. Shakespeare is about provoking questions as opposed to telling you which way to vote, so to give it any overtly pro or anti-fascist slant is wrong." But Fiennes's decision to update the play was sparked by aesthetic as well as political considerations. "Having acted in various Shakespeare productions over the years, I think that to be completely modern is the only way to go. Have the actors in modern clothes, drinking coffee, talking on mobile phones. It releases the energy somehow." Coriolanus is one of 22 films in contention for this year's Golden Bear award.

Other potential highlights include Margin Call, a drama of the financial crisis starring Kevin Spacey and Demi Moore, director Wim Wenders's homage to choreographer Pina Bausch and Tales of the Night, a 3D cartoon from French animator Michel Ocelot. The event also plans to honour the dissident Iranian film-maker Jafar Panahi with a career retrospective and a panel discussion on censorship in Iran. Panahi, the director of the award-winning The White Balloon and The Circle, was last month sentenced to six years in prison for his support for the Green uprisings that followed last year's disputed presidential elections. "We are going to use every opportunity to protest against this drastic verdict," said festival director Dieter Kosslick. The 61st Berlin film festival runs from 10-20 February. It opens with the European premiere of the acclaimed Coen brothers western True Grit. • This article was amended on 20 January and 14 February 2011. The original said Coriolanus is the 15th-century tale of a renegade Roman general from the 5th-century BC and referred to the award as the Golden Lion. These have both been corrected.

Ralph Fiennes Follows Tradition of Updating Shakespeare in ‘Coriolanus’ | Anglophenia | BBC America Ralph Fiennes Follows Tradition of Updating Shakespeare in ‘Coriolanus’ By Leah Rozen | 5 years ago Ralph Fiennes in the title role in 'Coriolanus' To update or not to update, that is the question when attempting to modernize Shakespeare. Whether ‘tis nobler merely to put characters into modern dress, thereby making them feel contemporary, or actually to have them spouting the jargon and slang of today to drive home the point that this isn’t your father’s Shakespeare. Director Ralph Fiennes, with help from screenwriter John Logan, has chosen the first path for his scorching new film version of Coriolanus, in which he also plays the title role. In Fiennes’ Coriolanus, characters speak into cell phones and address television cameras, but it’s Shakespearean verse they declaim, albeit with the cadence of everyday speech. In vigorously shaking the dust off one of the Bard’s lesser-known tragedies, the British star effectively uses a mix of contemporary costumes, settings and scenery to make the story feel politically and socially up to the minute. (The film opens today, Dec.

2 in New York and Los Angeles for a one-week Oscar-qualifying run and then will be released nationally Jan. 20.) Coriolanus is about a Roman military leader who’s incapable of bending his will to that of the people. His inability to compromise, despite the pleadings of his ambitious mother (Vanessa Redgrave), in the end cost him everything. Other cast members in the film include Scotsman Gerard Butler, who plays Coriolanus’ chief military rival, and Jessica Chastain as Coriolanus’ wife.) <noscript><iframe width="500" height="281" src="" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></noscript> Part of what makes the movie seem so startlingly contemporary is its urban setting. When Coriolanus finds himself in political confrontations, it is with fellow politicians in meeting rooms or at TV studios, or with demonstrators who have stormed public spaces – echoes of Occupy Wall Street. When he fights military battles, it’s guerilla warfare in blasted-out city streets and shell-scarred abandoned buildings (the film was shot in Belgrade in Serbia). All of which makes this Coriolanus hum with urgency and a muscular vitality often lacking in dustier productions.

Fiennes isn’t the first director who has reconceived a Shakespeare play to make it relevant while still keeping it true to the playwright’s words. (Movies like Ten Things I Hate About You and Scotland, Pa., contemporary films featuring plots loosely lifted from the Bard but minus his words, are horses of a different color.) In 1937, Orson Welles galvanized New York stage audiences when his Mercury Theatre company mounted a production of Shakespeare’s Julius Caesar set in a Fascist state. The Bard’s early Romans were transformed into black-shirted enforcers who would have been right at home saluting then Italian dictator Benito Mussolini. Welles’ production was recreated on film in Me and Orson Welles, the 2008 movie in which a stage-struck youth (Zac Efron) joins the Mercury Theatre and ends up helping put on Julius Caesar. (British actor Christian McKay played Welles.) <noscript><iframe width="500" height="281" src="" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></noscript> Even more imaginative was a 1995 film version of Richard III, which starred Ian McKellen in the title role.

Directed by Richard Loncraine, the movie transplanted Shakespeare’s historical saga to 1930s England, but it was an England ruled by an all-powerful Richard, who was a Hitler-like tyrant. In a particularly audacious turn, Richard delivers part of his “Now is the winter of our discontent” speech while standing at a urinal. (Annette Bening, Jim Broadbent, Kristin Scott Thomas and Maggie Smith also starred.) Another notable entry in the updated Shakespeare movie category is Romeo + Juliet (1996), an amped-up version of the tragedy about teen lovers directed by Aussie Baz Luhrmann. Starring Leonardo DiCaprio and Claire Danes, the film featured modern urban settings, guns and bling but mostly remained true to the playwright’s text. <noscript><iframe width="500" height="375" src="" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></noscript> Two other recent, modern-day versions of classic Shakespearean tragedies worth checking out are a 2010 Macbeth, which aired on PBS and starred Patrick Stewart as the flawed Scottish king in what looked like a bombed out bunker, and a 2000 Hamlet starring Ethan Hawke.

In the latter film, after his father, a business mogul who was head of the Manhattan-based Denmark Corporation, is murdered, Hamlet becomes enmeshed in high-stakes corporate intrigue. <noscript><iframe width="500" height="281" src="" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></noscript> Sometimes, a Shakespeare movie can be totally modern despite its old-fashioned period costumes and setting. It’s all in the timing. Consider the 1944 version of Henry V. Laurence Olivier, who also directed, wore a bowl hair cut and tights, carried a sword and rode a horse when he played the medieval monarch. But the movie came out while England was in the thick of fighting World War II and its story, about a resourceful young English king leading his troops into battle, spoke directly to viewers. After Olivier rousingly delivered Henry’s heartfelt St. Crispin’s Day speech (“We few, we happy few, we band of brothers …”), the extras playing his soldiers weren’t the only ones cheering.

<noscript><iframe width="500" height="375" src="" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></noscript> ———————- How do you like your Shakespeare, modern or old-fashioned? ———————- Ralph Fiennes' 'Coriolanus': What the Critics are Saying | Hollywood Reporter Ralph Fiennes' 'Coriolanus': What the Critics are Saying 6:20 PM PST 12/1/2011 by THR Staff COMMENTS Coriolanus Films Ltd./Magnolia Mae Films/Berlin International Film Festival The Weinstein Co. film, also starring Gerard Butler, Vanessa Redgrave and Jessica Chastain, will make its theatrical debut on Jan. 20. The reviews are in for Ralph Fiennes’ directorial debut, Coriolanus. PHOTOS: Berlin Film Festival Buzz Films The film, which premiered at the Berlin Film Festival in February, is set for a theatrical debut of Jan. 20. But first, the Weinstein Co. will embark on an awards qualifying run later this month. Fiennes stars in the title role, enlisting Gerard Butler, Vanessa Redgrave and Jessica Chastain for key roles surrounding his modern day adaptation of William Shakespeare’s 17th century story.

VIDEO: Ralph Fiennes Takes Shakespeare to Another Level in 'Coriolanus' Trailer The film has garnered at 94% rating among critics on Rotten Tomatoes . Read below for a sampling of critics opinions on the project. "It could be sold as a straightforward action picture and should not put off those who find Shakespeare daunting. It's a tough, violent and moving tragedy with splendid performances by [Ralph] Fiennes, Vanessa Redgrave as his mother, Brian Cox as his friend Menenius, and Gerard Butler as his enemy Aufidius. Its success should carry beyond festivals and scholars to a mainstream audience.” -- Ray Bennett, The Hollywood Reporter EXCLUSIVE PHOTOS: New 'Coriolanus' Stills of Ralph Fiennes, Gerard Butler, Vanessa Redgrave "For his first foray behind the camera, Fiennes has started off right by surrounding himself with a superlative cast … He has taken the title role for himself, Caius Martius Coriolanus, in the story of a war hero wading into the political arena only to be undone by his hubris.

In a far riskier move, the director, working with screenwriter John Logan (Gladiator, The Aviator), has chosen to stay with the syntax of the play while updating the rest of the production, which is both the charm and the challenge of Coriolanus. But if you give yourself over to that clash of style and sensibility, something magical happens as the power, the prescience and the precision of Shakespeare's words take hold of modern problems.” -- Betsy Sharkey, Los Angeles Times FILM REVIEW: 'Coriolanus' "As soon as a thrilling Ralph Fiennes appears on Coriolanus it’s clear why he chose this lesser-known Shakespeare tragedy for his directing debut. Dressed in camouflage fatigues Mr. Fiennes — as the mythic Roman military hero first known as Caius Martius and later Coriolanus — enters a raucous scene and commands it with just a glare. What power! The city’s hungry, rioting citizens, some carrying protest signs and one holding a camera phone, have descended, demanding food.

Martius charges at them and then lets loose the contempt that will aid in his downfall: 'What’s the matter, you dissentious rogues, that, rubbing the poor itch of your opinion, make yourselves scabs?' The voice is soft but insistent, the rage thunderous and the backdrop — war, famine, civil unrest — as familiar as the news.” -- Manohla Dargis, New York Times VIDEO: Ralph Fiennes Reveals Backstory on His Name, Finest Performances and Directorial Debut, 'Coriolanus' “Butler is in 300 mode, playing yet another variation of a gun-toting renegade, as he did in Law Abiding Citizen and Machine Gun Preacher. As the arrogant antihero, Fiennes oozes wrathful menace and scorn, persuasively uttering such lines as "Anger's my meat." He tells his soldiers, "Make you a sword of me," but his battles resemble video games more than swordplay. Redgrave is the film's unqualified highlight. The ever-graceful 74-year-old tosses off Shakespeare's language as if such poetry were second nature.

She makes us believe her character more than any of the others, communicating a lively strength as well as resolute iciness with remarkable grace. Jessica Chastain ably plays Virgilia, Coriolanus' hapless wife. She is proving to be a versatile young actresses, moving smoothly from a role as a flashy outsider among Southern belles in The Help to a fierce action heroine in The Debt and a grieving mother in The Tree of Life.” -- Claudia Puig, USA Today Ralph Fiennes’ Coriolanus: The Paths of Gory | TIME.com Movies Ralph Fiennes’ Coriolanus: The Paths of Gory This robust study of a war lover, his blood-lusting mom and a nation in political turmoil has a bonus: words by Shakespeare Follow @TIMECulture When people talk about great war movies, they usually mean antiwar movies: Paths of Glory, Apocalypse Now, Grand Illusion and Full Metal Jacket, to mention the top four titles on Time Out New York’s 50 Greatest War Films list.

You could add All Quiet on the Western Front, The Red Badge of Courage, Gallipoli, The Deer Hunter, Platoon… keep on naming them, and unless you go to World War II (Hitler bad, fighting him good), you’ll find few honored movies that deviate from the standard liberal line denouncing organized carnage between nations — i.e., the military defense of one’s country. A rare recent exception: The Hurt Locker, which pinned an oakleaf cluster of flinty heroism on the chests of American soldiers in Iraq. (READ: The first review of The Hurt Locker ) Who can look at professional soldiers — the men we send to kill and be killed in our name — without flinching, without sanctifying or demonizing them? None other than William Shakespeare, in The Tragedy of Coriolanus. It is one of the Bard’s least performed plays (tied with Titus Andronicus) and, despite its title, is usually not deemed one of his great tragedies (Hamlet, Macbeth, Othello and King Lear).

And because some moviegoers may not know how to pronounce the title, they should consult the Cole Porter song “Brush Up Your Shakespeare” from Kiss Me, Kate: “If she says your behavior is heinous, / Kick her right in the Coriolanus.” But for all its relative obscurity, it is Shakespeare’s most acute psychological study of a man of war; and Ralph Fiennes, as director and star, has turned it into an urgent, burly action film. Fiennes appeared as a British mercenary in The Hurt Locker, and for his adaptation of Coriolanus he hired that film’s cinematographer, Barry Ackroyd, to shoot the picture in Serbia, whose ravaged landscapes make it an ideal location for a war movie. Fiennes assigned screenwriter John Logan (who completes a 2011 trifecta after his scripts for Rango and Hugo) to condense the text and update it from the fifth century B.C. to modern times. He gave himself the lead role of General Caius Martius, and cast Gerard Butler, once the Spartan hero of 300, as Aufidius, a rival general in the Volscian provinces.

All these choices help make the movie the most vivid screen rethinking of a Shakespeare play since Baz Luhrmann’s Romeo + Juliet 15 years ago. (READ: our take on the latest Romeo and Juliet adaptation) TV news channels announce the suspension of civil liberties due to popular unrest in “a place calling itself Rome.” This is not the Eternal City of imperial grandeur, more like a vision of what the Italian capital could become if the nation were to go bankrupt and explode into anarchy. For this tinderbox, General Martius is the match. A vaunted warrior just back from winning the Volscian conflict, and awarded the honorific Coriolanus for subduing the Volscian town of Corioles, Martius orders that grain supplies be denied to the plebeians who would Occupy the Coliseum. Hard times deserve a hard man, Rome’s own barbarian. As played, or rather waged, by Fiennes, Martius (his very name means war) is brave and ruthless, proud and unyielding, a hero and a monster.

In short, a man of war, and no apologies offered or needed: “Let me have war, say I; it exceeds peace as far as day does night; it’s spritely, waking, audible, and full of vent. Peace is a very apoplexy, lethargy: mulled, deaf, sleepy, insensible; a getter of more bastard children than war’s a destroyer of men.” (READ: Who wrote Coriolanus—Shakespeare or Anonymous ?) Centuries before mechanized warfare, Shakespeare described Martius as a tank in human form: “when he walks, he moves like an engine, and the ground shrinks before his treading… and his hum is a battery.” Martius’ body, a flesh-map of Rome’s recent colonial forays, is marked with 27 deep wounds, including a battle scar that curves across his cheek like a Riviera corniche. For this soldier, war injuries are medals, or notches on an outlaw’s gun.

“Every gash,” he boasts, “was an enemy’s grave.” Martius has only contempt for those Romans who stayed home and fed on the city’s largesse, as Romulus and Remus sucked at the she-wolf’s teat, while he was risking his life to defend them: “Look, sir, my wounds. I got them in my country’s service, when some certain of your brethren roared and ran from th’ noise of our own drums.” This military stud is a mama’s boy, for Martius has been bred to belligerence by his war-lusting mother Volumnia (Vanessa Redgrave), who had much the same impact in shaping his spirit as Mrs. Iselin did on her son Raymond in The Manchurian Candidate. Volumnia says that if she had given birth to a dozen boys she would “rather eleven die nobly for their country than one voluptuously surfeit out of action.” She dresses her son’s wounds as a lover would, and seems more wife to Martius than his own demure spouse Virgilia (Jessica Chastain). At Volumnia’s urging, Martius runs for consul, but can’t summon the honey of campaign oratory.

His Senate supporters should have considered a simple verity: that a man sent off to slaughter for his country may not be the man suited to rule when he returns. It takes a different skill set. (What are the six war movies are on the all-TIME 100 list ?) Most Shakespeare protagonists confide their thoughts to the audience in soliloquies. Martius speaks his mind in public, at high pitch and with an excoriating vocabulary. He sneers at one Senator as “this Triton to the minnows” (a zinger worthy of an Elizabethan Rickles) and derides the plebeians as “the beast with many heads.” The rabble stir his patrician scorn: “What’s the matter, you dissentious rogues, that, rubbing the poor itch of your opinion, make yourselves scabs?” And when he loses the election and is banished from Rome, he rails against his judges: “You common cry of curs!

whose breath I hate as reek o’ the rotten fens, whose loves I prize as the dead carcasses of unburied men that do corrupt my air — I banish you.” He decamps for Volscia, to forge a rebellious alliance with Aufidius, while Volumnia comforts herself with a war-mother’s steely masochism. “Anger’s my meat,” she says. “I sup upon myself, and so shall starve with feeding.” Redgrave unleashes her most ferocious film performance in decades, as a woman forbidden to rule and so pouring her power into her son. Butler gives full body and heart to the ostensibly more humane Aufidius. And in a role famously played by such take-charge personalities as Laurence Olivier, Richard Burton and Anthony Hopkins, Fiennes almost literally breathes fire. The tattoos he sports along with his scars suggest the ornamentation worn by Fiennes as the serial killer Francis Dolarhyde in the 2002 film of Thomas Harris’ Red Dragon.

(As a Senator says, “This Martius is grown from man to dragon: he has wings; he’s more than a creeping thing.”) Daubing Martius with some of the lurid colors he applied to Dolarhyde and to Anton Goth in Schindler’s List — and, of course, to Voldemort — the actor also invests the character with a Patton-like military majesty. He is a creature to be admired or at least understood. (READ: Whatever happened to Ralph Fiennes? ) Making his film directorial debut, Fiennes displays a sure, strong hand for most of the Coriolanus‘ tumultuous two hours. Similar in its brutal spirit to Ian McKellen’s Brownshirt stage and film version of Richard III, the movie renounces the precision of most Shakespeare adaptations for charnel imagery and the occasional shaky-cam flourish. Just as important, Fiennes and his cast yank the 400-year-old dialogue off the page and make it sound vividly conversational; it lives and scalds, sings and singes.

The film has fifth-act problems, as did the play, but Fiennes’ bleak overview should leave receptive viewers feeling daunted and haunted; and that’s just the right takeaway from an action-film tragedy. When people compile a list of the movies most truthful to the valor and pain of war, and the men who wage it, they ought to consider this Coriolanus—for is not a prowar or antiwar statement; it is a portrait from inside a warrior’s mind. Subscribe Popular Among Subscribers Ralph Fiennes on acting (and directing) Shakespeare in “Coriolanus” – IFC Posted by Matt Singer on December 1st Actor Ralph Fiennes has played some powerful men: lords, dukes, the Greek god of the underworld, even the most evil wizard ever . But in his new movie, an adaptation of William Shakespeare’s “Coriolanus,” Fiennes plays his most powerful role to date: film director. When I asked Fiennes how he liked sitting in the director’s chair for the first time, he described it as something of a mixed bag. “It was scary and sometimes a headfuck. I knew it would be.” he said. “But I also knew it was possible.

You just need to have the time and the support system. But unquestionably it was a challenge, especially in bigger scenes. Those were very tough days.” The tough days produced a tough, intense film, one that doesn’t look like your typical Shakespearean adaptation — unless my memory’s spotty and I’m just forgetting the other Shakespeare movies with brutal and surprisingly badass modern warfare scenes to rival anything in “The Hurt Locker” or “Green Zone.” Fiennes and screenwriter John Logan preserved much of Shakespeare’s original dialogue while updating the setting, teasing out fascinating twenty-first century relevance in a text hundreds of years old. Fiennes stars as the title character, a fearsome Roman general who gets exiled from his home and winds up forming an unlikely alliance with his former enemy, the Volscian general Aufidius ( Gerard Butler ). The film opens with a riot, where the disgruntled lower classes revolt against the government and Coriolanus and his black-clad mlilitary men are called in to restore order. The whole sequence, which was shot months ago, resonates with weirdly clairvoyant shades of the Occupy Wall Street movement.

In our brief but stimulating conversation, Fiennes and I discussed the movie’s timely political commentary and his approach to the muscular action scenes, and we even spent a quick minute or two on “Skyfall,” the upcoming James Bond film by director Sam Mendes in which the actor plays an as-yet-undisclosed role (“I don’t get laid, that’s for sure,” Fiennes teased). As I sat down for our chat, Fiennes was thumbing through a recent issue of Cineaste with a “Shakespeare in the Movies” supplement, so I decided to start my questions right there. Do you have a favorite film of a Shakespeare play? I haven’t seen it in a long time, but the Russian director Grigori Kozintsev did an epic black and white “Hamlet” with a Russian actor called [Innokenti] Smoktunovsky that was amazing. I also love Peter Brook’s version of “King Lear” with Paul Scofield. It was fantastic; shot in Denmark, I think. There’s a brilliant opening with the camera tracking along all these static faces and the camera just tracks and tracks and tracks.

Then it cuts to the back of this huge vertical shape, like a tree trunk or a sculpture. You see all these men facing it in a stone room but you don’t know what it is. Then you cut around to the front, and it’s actually a tall throne with Scofield sitting with this huge fur against his head. He just stares and stares and there’s this long pause. Then suddenly he says “No, it is our fast intent, to shake all cares and purpose from our age, conferring them on younger strengths…” I’m sensing you’ve seen that a couple times. [laughs] Yeah, it’s brilliant. Well let’s talk about your Shakespearian adaptation. As I was sitting in the next room waiting to talk to you, I was looking at a pile of newspapers and every one had Occupy Wall Street on the front page, all with pictures that look like scenes from your film. It’s almost like you were looking into a crystal ball when you made this. It’s weird. I just think “Coriolanus” is always quote-unquote relevant. The power play, the politics, etc.

But now with everything going on, Egypt, the Middle East, what’s happening in Syria — I mean that’s a Coriolanian regime. Coriolanus is in the Syrian army somewhere. But it is a tragedy; it’s the tragedy of Coriolanus. He’s not trying to be a dictator. He’s a soldier that doesn’t tolerate a democratic vision, but that’s because he’s a soldier. You can only understand him if you understand that he’s a part of that military ethos. I think military people can have a sense of that otherness from the civilian world, and in Coriolanus’ case, it’s extreme. But it is a man trying to hold to a sense of his warrior’s honor, which is completely out of place and doesn’t work, particularly in his reluctance to negotiate. And the tragedy is he agrees to negotiate when he shouldn’t and it’s counterproductive in every way. But I have a sympathy for him. Why is that? I suppose he has the tragic flaw of arrogance or pride, but he’s a man trying to hold to who he is. And that always moved me when I saw it. He’s this remote, flinty, confrontational person.

In a way, you weep for him because he’s so alone. He’s incapable of embracing any kind of intimacy with anyone, except with his enemy Aufidius. And that’s the closest he gets to any kind of meaningful, intimate interaction. You played the role on the stage about a decade ago. Has your interpretation of the character changed in that time? Probably it hasn’t essentially changed, but the film gives you opportunity to show things that are not in the play that help the audience build a picture of who this person is. I can show the “remove-ness” of him, which I’m drawn to, in his exile, in his walking or camping out in the swamp. I loved doing those things. I’m guessing there’s probably a little more action in this film than there was in the stage version you did. Yeah, but in Shakespeare’s play, within the first 20 minutes, there’s a war. We pretty much followed Shakespeare’s structure, but we actually simplified the battle from the play to the film. In the play, Coriolanus captures the town, then goes out from the town into the plain to help Cominius win another battle and then he fights Aufidius.

I mean, it’s relentless, and that’s all just the beginning of the play. I think Shakespeare’s trying to say “You think you don’t like him, but look at what he is. He has got the most extreme, physical warrior’s courage you’ll ever see. Now try to figure out what we’re going to do with him.” I think there’s a mischievous side of Shakespeare showing us different sides of things, presenting us with a problem of behavior. How do we respond to that? The battle scenes look incredible. I’m sitting there going, “Wow, this is like ‘The Hurt Locker.'” Then I looked at the credits and I realize your director of cinematography was Barry Ackroyd, who was the cinematographer of “The Hurt Locker.” And you were in that film as well. That’s true, but people latch on to Barry’s great skill for that kind of cinematography and ignore the quieter things he does brilliantly as well. Barry works a lot for Ken Loach. The simpler scenes are beautifully shot. People don’t notice him there. I wanted that kind of cameraman. The other very visual part of the movie that I responded to were the close-ups.

They felt unusually close, at least to my eye, and very intimate in a way that also makes a movie different than a play, because you could never get that close to an actor on the stage. In that sense, they’re actually very cinematic close-ups. Some people say to use your close-ups sparingly. Don’t overdo them. But a lot of them were just instinctive gut choices on the day. I had the camera and could have shown a lot more, but the drama is happening inside people’s eyes when they’re speaking. When Brian Cox says “I know what you are, I’ve got your number,” and he leans in, you want to be in close. I was constantly making that choice. There are wider shots but, for key moments anyway, we stay close. The face is a landscape on film. I’ve seen great actors do not-so-great versions of Shakespeare. Is there a separate set of skills an actor needs to do this kind of work? Shakespeare’s use of English is increasingly alien. You start a sentence and you have all these clauses before you get to where the sentence is to arrive at. In some pieces that’s truly challenging. Other times, he writes very simply.

Sometimes I think people come to Shakespeare with an inhibition or fear. I think that’s more the problem than they don’t have the skills to do it. They just get intimidated? It’s often simpler than people think. They build it up as this grand thing in their mind. They build it up that it needs some kind of weird inflection. It doesn’t. There are certainly heightened moments when there is a musical quality. I’ve just done Prospero in “The Tempest,” and there are a couple places, certainly one famous speech where he lets go of his spells, where there is that sort of structure, a build that has to happen. And if you flatline that in a kind of nonchalant way, it disappears. So there are certain so-called “arias,” that are there. Those are often the great passages. But it has to come from a real place. One of my notes to myself and to everyone on “Coriolanus” was “Keep it simple.” Don’t over-inflect. The speech needed to be naturalistic and simple and accessible as much as possible. “Coriolanus” opens tomorrow in limited release. If you see it let us know what you think.

Leave us a comment below or write to us on Facebook and Twitter . Ralph Fiennes - Biography - IMDb Ralph Fiennes Biography Showing all 70 items Jump to: Overview (3) | Mini Bio (1) | Spouse (1) | Trade Mark (3) | Trivia (45) | Personal Quotes (17) Overview (3) 5' 11" (1.81 m) Mini Bio (1) Actor Ralph Nathaniel Twisleton-Wykeham-Fiennes was born on December 22, 1962 in Suffolk, England, to Jennifer Anne Mary Alleyne (Lash), a novelist, and Mark Fiennes, a photographer. He is the eldest of six children. Four of his siblings are also in the arts: Martha Fiennes , a director; Magnus Fiennes , a musician; Sophie Fiennes , a producer; and Joseph Fiennes , an actor. He is of English, Irish, and Scottish origin. A noted Shakespeare interpreter, he first achieved success onstage at the Royal National Theatre.

Fiennes first worked on screen in 1990 and then made his film debut in 1992 as Heathcliff in Emily Brontë's Wuthering Heights (1992), opposite Juliette Binoche. 1993 was his "breakout year". He had a major role in the controversial Peter Greenaway film The Baby of Mâcon (1993), with Julia Ormond, which was poorly received. Later that year he became known internationally for portraying the amoral Nazi concentration camp commandant Amon Goeth in Steven Spielberg's Schindler's List (1993). For this he was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor and the Golden Globe Award for Best Supporting Actor. He did not win, but did win the Best Supporting Actor BAFTA Award for the role, as well as Best Supporting Actor honors from numerous critics groups, including the National Society of Film Critics, and the New York, Chicago, Boston, and London Film Critics associations. His portrayal as Göth also earned him a spot on the American Film Institute's list of Top 50 Film Villains. To look suitable to represent Goeth, Fiennes gained weight, but he managed to shed it afterwards.

In 1994, he portrayed American academic Charles Van Doren in Quiz Show (1994). In 1996, he was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Actor for his performance as Count Almásy the World War II epic romance, and another Best Picture winner, Anthony Minghella 's The English Patient (1996), in which he starred with Kristin Scott Thomas. He also received BAFTA and Golden Globe nominations, as well as two Screen Actors Guild (SAG) Award nominations, one for Best Actor and another shared with the film's ensemble cast. - IMDb Mini Biography By: Gustaf Molin and Pedro Borges Spouse (1) (September 1993 - 28 October 1997) (divorced) Trade Mark (3) Often plays mysterious characters with equally mysterious pasts Often plays menacing, sadistic villains Trivia (45) Name pronounced "Rafe Fines". Ranked #34 in Empire (UK) magazine's "The Top 100 Movie Stars of All Time" list.

[October 1997] Of the roughly one dozen actors to play "Hamlet" on Broadway, he is the first to win a Tony Award for doing so, in the 1995 Almeida Theatre production directed by Jonathan Kent . Chosen by Empire magazine as one of the 100 Sexiest Stars in film history (#33). [1995] On 3 March 2001, he received the William Shakespeare Award from the Shakespeare Theatre in Washington, D.C. Past recipients include Mel Gibson , Patrick Stewart , Lynn Redgrave , Kenneth Branagh and Kevin Kline . His uncle, Nicholas Lash, is a former priest and Cambridge theology professor, and his great-uncle, Dom Patrick Moore, is a Benedictine monk. (1995 - 2006) Partner Francesca Annis . Gained several pounds of muscle for his role in Red Dragon (2002). His performance as Amon Goeth from his film Schindler's List (1993) was ranked #15 on the American Film Institute's Villains list in their compilation of the 100 years of The Greatest Screen Heroes and Villains.

Is the oldest of 6 children - younger siblings; Martha Fiennes (b. 1964), Magnus Fiennes (b. 1965), Sophie Fiennes (b. 1967) and Jacob Mark Fiennes & Joseph Fiennes (b. 27 May 1970). He also has a foster brother, Michael Emery (b. 31 December 1952) who has been with the family since he was 11. An Associate Member of the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art (RADA). He and his The End of the Affair (1999) co-star Julianne Moore have acted in separate Hannibal Lecter films: he in Red Dragon (2002) and she in Hannibal (2001). His tattoo in Red Dragon (2002) took eight hours to apply. Has appeared in Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire (2005) and Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix (2007) with Gary Oldman .

Both of them have played villains in the Hannibal Lecter films: Fiennes played Francis Dolarhyde in Red Dragon (2002), and Oldman played Mason Verger in Hannibal (2001). 4th cousin of Lord Saye & Sele, owner of Broughton Castle, which appears in Shakespeare in Love (1998) as Viola's house. 8th cousin of Prince Charles . Fiennes was reluctant to take the role of Lord Voldemort in Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire (2005). In a television interview on AMC's Shootout (2003) (November 20, 2005), he claimed to have been unimpressed with the previous three Harry Potter films. Fiennes was apparently nonplussed at the idea of appearing in the fourth film of a series and stated that he had "never bought into [the] world" of Harry Potter. Family members urged him to take the role while other friends counseled against it.

He eventually changed his mind after Goblet of Fire director Mike Newell showed Fiennes preproduction conceptions of what the character of Voldemort might look like: "The little kid in me that likes to dress up and be bad went 'Yeah! I want to do it!'". He was considered for the role of Robert Langdon in The Da Vinci Code (2006), which went to Tom Hanks . Broke up with Francesca Annis [February 7, 2006]. He and his brother, Joseph Fiennes , have both worked with Cate Blanchett ( Oscar and Lucinda (1997) and Elizabeth (1998)), Rachel Weisz ( The Constant Gardener (2005) and Enemy at the Gates (2001)) and Liv Tyler ( Onegin (1999) and Stealing Beauty (1996)). When he noticed that children watching the filming were scared of him as "Lord Voldemort" in Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire (2005), he knew he had the character right.

His performance as "Amon Goeth" in Schindler's List (1993) is ranked #61 on Premiere Magazine's 100 Greatest Performances of All Time (2006). He was considered for the role of Simon Templar in The Saint (1997), which went to Val Kilmer . Filmed his role as Lord Voldemort in Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire (2005) in only two days. His nephew, Hero Fiennes-Tiffin , will be playing the 11-year-old version of his character Tom Riddle a.k.a. "Lord Voldemort" in Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince (2009). Has shared two roles with Peter O'Toole . They have both played Hamlet on stage, and both made their film debut playing T.E. Lawrence. He was a guest of a Belgrade Film Festival - FEST 2009. Won the 1995 Tony Award (New York City) for Actor in a Drama for "Hamlet" and was nominated for the 2006 Tony Award (New York City) for Actor in a Drama for "Faith Healer".

Friends with Liam Neeson and the late Natasha Richardson . The Hurt Locker (2008) marks the third best picture Oscar winning film that Ralph Fiennes has co-starred in. In addition, the other two, Schindler's List (1993); Best Supporting Actor Oscar nominee) and The English Patient (1996); Best Actor Oscar nominee), were also dramas set during wartime. Has appeared twice on the cover of GQ magazine: August '94 and July '98. When appearing on Inside the Actors Studio (1994), Julianne Moore named him as her favorite leading man. They appeared together in The End of the Affair (1999). London, UK: Playing lead role of Prospero in Trevor Nunn's production of The Tempest at the Royal Haymarket Theatre. [August 2011] Appearing in the London West End production of Oedipus as the title character [October 2008] New York, NY: It was announced that he, as well as Cate Blanchett , will be honored by gala tributes (separately) in October by the Film Society of Lincoln Center during its annual film festival.

[August 2013] Stars in Shakespeare's "Julius Caesar" as Mark Antony at London's Barbican Centre, in a production by Deborah Warner with Fiona Shaw (Calpurnia) and John Shrapnel (Caesar). The production will be on tour to France and Spain later this year with the same cast. [April 2005] Currently appearing in the title role of Brian Friel 's "Faith Healer", at the Booth Theatre on Broadway. The revival co-stars 'Cherry Jones' and Ian McDiarmid , who won a Tony for best supporting actor. Ralph received a Tony nomination. [June 2006] Belgrade (Serbia), sightseeing locations for filming "Coriolanus", Shakespeare play set in modern time. [August 2008] He has English, Irish, and Scottish ancestry. Many of his recent ancestors lived in India, during the British colonial period. He has said that his surname, "Fiennes", is of Norman origin.

As of 2015, has appeared in six films that were nominated for the Best Picture Oscar: Schindler's List (1993), Quiz Show (1994), The English Patient (1996), The Reader (2008), The Hurt Locker (2008) and The Grand Budapest Hotel (2014). Of those, Schindler's List (1993), The English Patient (1996) and The Hurt Locker (2008) are winners in the category. Was considered for the role of James Bond years before being cast as Gareth Mallory in Skyfall (2012). Coriolanus : Watch online now with Amazon Instant Video: Ralph Fiennes, Gerard Butler, Brian Cox, Jessica Chastain, Vanessa Redgrave, James Nesbitt: Amazon.co.uk By Antenna TOP 500 REVIEWER on 7 Mar. 2012 Format: DVD Although based on a dark, grim and bloodthirsty Shakespearean tragedy, I was very impressed by this film which I went to see with some trepidation.

Well-paced and not excessively violent (compared to what it could have been) the acting is excellent, the words spoken with such expression and clarity that the sense comes through very strongly, even to someone like me unfamiliar with the text. It does not bother me that some passages and plot details may have been omitted in the interests of making the plot easier to digest. Likewise, a dialogue which sounds at time surprisingly modern compensates for the lack of any memorable "To be or not to be"-style soliloquies which may not come across well in a film. The modern setting is not irritating and gratuitous as is too often the case, but also enabled me to see the film's relevance to our divided and violent world. Rome is represented as a typical concrete western city, ruled by the cynical "haves" ("patricians") while the mass of "have-nots" are beginning to riot over lack of bread, although they are easily swayed by cunning politicians. Rome is under threat from a Balkan-type community called the Volscians, against whom the professional soldier Caius Martius (Ralph Fiennes) gains a celebrated victory over the city of Corioles, thus being rewarded with the surname "Coriolanus".

This leads naturally to his appointment as a consul, but "honest to a fault", he refuses to conceal his contempt for the people. His political enemies play on this to get him banished, which of course turns him from a loyal supporter of Rome to a man bent on revenge. On a personal level, this is an interesting psychological study of pride, fanaticism and jealousy. Read more › See More Coriolanus is set in "A place calling itself Rome" that could be anywhere. Caius Martius (Fiennes) arrives back in the c...ity-state bloodied but victorious after his most recent battles to be acclaimed as a peerless warrior. His mother Volumnia (Redgrave) exudes unquenchable pride in her son even as she observes, "Before him he carries noise, and behind him he leaves tears." He has defeated Aufidius, leader of the rebel Volsces and won the city of Corioles, so he is dubbed Coriolanus. Urged on by his mentor Menenius and the ambitious Volumnia, Martius expects to be given the highest rank in the Senate despite opposition from Tribunes Brutus (Paul Jesson) and Sicinius (James Nesbitt).

Before he may claim that position, however, he must gain the support of the people and there's the rub because he has led brutal reprisals against social protestors and has no taste for the posturing required to appease the crowd. With hunger and deprivation widespread, campaigners Cassius (Ashraf Barhom) and Tamora (Lubna Azabal) help the opposing Tribunes turn the crowd's reaction into a frenzied rejection of their proposed leader. Outraged and betrayed, Martius is banished. He leaves home and family with only vengeance in mind, and heads off to find Aufidius so they can assault Rome together. The meeting between the two sworn enemies is fraught with danger since their most recent bloody encounter has left them both scarred and vengeful. But Martius' fearless approach and unmatched skills in battle win over the Volsces and they come to worship him almost more than they do Audifius. With Rome now desperate, the story plays out as Martius plots his return, Audifius contemplates his own future, and the desperate Tribunes send first Menenius and then Volumnia to plead for peace. It's a Shakespearean tragedy, however, and things do not go well. See more

Question: Which Shakespearian tragedy was turned into a 2011 film starring Ralph Fiennes in the title role?
Answer: CORIOLANUS